The invention relates generally to assembly of microelectronic, optoelectronic and photonic components, and more specifically, to a component and chip assembly apparatus configured to optically couple optical fibers to light guides formed in a semiconductor chip.
In various technological fields such as photonics, for example, it may be desired to attach a component having optical fibers to a waveguide coupler included with a photonic device. One such component is typically referred to as an optical fiber pigtail assembly. A cost effective approach to fabricate these fiber pigtail assemblies is to use a high-throughput component and chip assembly apparatus typically referred to as a pick-and-place tool.
Pick-and-place tools often include a picker mechanism that works to pick up the chip component using a motion arm that includes a pick head. The picker brings a portion of the chip components such as, for example, optical fibers, into contact with a substrate or chip (i.e., the part the component will be placed on) which sits on a stationary assembly stage. The optical fibers and the substrate/chip are then aligned in the X and Y-axes (e.g., horizontal axes) and the motion arm moves down in the Z-axis (e.g., vertical axis) to place the chip component on the substrate/chip. The motion arm, however, typically does not have the capability to make a precise horizontal motion to butt-couple the fibers and the waveguide coupler once the optical fibers come into contact with the chip. Moreover, the motion arm does not generally have pressure controls in the horizontal displacement directions (e.g., the X and Y axes) in order to control the force of the butt-couple.
A solution to provide the necessary horizontal motion is to pre-fix a fiber lid to the optical fibers using, for example, adhesive. The adhesive is applied across the entire bottom surface of the lid so as to fixate the lid to the optical fibers (i.e., the fiber array) according to a single adhesive force. Thereafter, the fiber pigtail assembly is picked up and maneuvered to the assembly stage such that the fiber array and the fiber lid are brought into contact with the chip.